Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A genus of dicotyledonous plants of the order Ericaceæ, the heath family, type of the tribe Pyroleæ, characterized by racemed flowers with five converging petals, ten stamens with peculiar four-celled inverted anthers opening by pores, and a capsule opening from the base upward, with cobwebby margins.
  • noun [lowercase] Any plant of the above genus.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of several evergreen perennials of the genus Pyrola

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The flowers are thickish, something like the pyrola, and its manner of growth resembles the hyacinth, with bell-shaped flowers clustering along the upper part of the stem, and erect, pointed leaves.

    Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 An Illustrated Weekly Various

  • Among the most desolate sandhills you may find in July acres of wax-white pyrola – like lilies of the valley splashed with pink – covering the plains between the lonely ridges of harsh, grey grass.

    The Spring of Joy: A Little Book of Healing 1917

  • In shady corners, deeper in the wood, the fragrant pyrola lifted its scape of clustering bells, like a lily of the valley wandered to the forest.

    Little Rivers; a book of essays in profitable idleness Henry Van Dyke 1892

  • Both the glossy pipsissima and the pretty spotted wintergreen, with its variegated leaves, are common here; so is the fragrant shin-leaf; and the one-flowered pyrola, rare in most parts of the country, is also found in our woods.

    Rural Hours 1887

  • A plain brown carpet suits it best, with a modest figure of green -- preferably of evergreen -- woven into it; a tracery of partridge-berry vine, or, it may be, of club moss, with here and there a tuft of pipsissewa and pyrola.

    The Foot-path Way Bradford Torrey 1877

  • Here I found many of my old favorites the heathworts -- kalmia, pyrola, chiogenes, huckleberry, cranberry, etc.

    Travels in Alaska John Muir 1876

  • On the opener spots beneath the trees the ground is covered to a depth of two or three feet with mosses of indescribable freshness and beauty, a few dwarf conifers often planted on their rich furred bosses, together with pyrola, coptis, and Solomon's-seal.

    Travels in Alaska John Muir 1876

  • A few are standing at an elevation of nearly three thousand feet; at twenty-five hundred feet, pyrola, veratrum, vaccinium, fine grasses, sedges, willows, mountain-ash, buttercups, and acres of the most luxuriant cassiope are in bloom.

    Travels in Alaska John Muir 1876

  • The family of the heath, cranberry, pyrola, Andromeda, and mountain-laurel -- how do these blossoms welcome their insect friends?

    My Studio Neighbors William Hamilton Gibson 1873

  • Pyrola secunda (one-sided pyrola), very common, Caucomgomoc.

    The Maine Woods 1858

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